It took a while to dawn on me that my child will be half Danish and will therefore refer to her Danish relatives by Danish names. I know it sounds silly that I would never think about that, but I didn't. Anyways, here are the words little Darwina will be using for her father's side of the family.
Dad - Far/Fatter (pronounced Faaaaaaaaaw) - the Swedes go by "Pappa" but the Danes use the more traditional word for "Father." Another nickname is "Fatter," and I'm just glad that Kjartan can be called that and not me.
Grandma - Farmor (pronounced farmo) - This literally means "Father's mother." If my mother were Danish she would be "Mormor".
Grandpa - FarFar (Pronounced FaaaawFaaaaaw) - This literally means "Father's Father." If my father were Danish he would be "MorFar"
Aunt Nanna - Faster (Pronounced like it looks) - This means "Father's sister" - Kjartan may be Fatter because his sister is Faster. Hahaha I crack myself up.
Great-grandmother - Oldemor - (Pronounced All - de - Mor) - This means "Really Old Mother." Gee, what an honorable title.
Great Aunt - Grandmoster - (Pronounced Gran maaaster) - grandmother's sister, or great-aunt.
As for my side of the family, we take on the French Canandian names. Darwina's grandmother will be "Memere" and her great-grandmothers will be "Grandmemere." Her uncle will probably go by Uncle Tom (and no, he doesn't have a cabin).
While it will take some getting used to for me to use the term "Faaaaaaaaaaaaaw" - and yes, it's really drawn out like that even when the kid isn't whining - i do find it fun that the child will have two distinct sets of names for each side of the family.
And for those of you wondering - Darwina will speak both English and Danish. I plan to speak only English to her, Kjartan will speak only Danish to her, Kjartan and I will speak a mix of Danish / English / messed-up Swedish to each other, and she will eventually have a Danish day care. According to the experts, this is the best way to make sure she learns both languages fluently and also a great way for me to improve my Danish - so that is what we shall do! It sounds confusing in theory, but is a system that is used in many households and is apparently quite easy once you get used to it.
Oh, and we do know what we will name her . . . and it's not Darwina . . . and I'm not posting it on this blog until she's born. So HA!
maths help, please
6 hours ago
15 comments:
Father in Danish is "fader" not "fatter" and usually abbreviated as "far". The same goes with "moder" into "mor" or "moar" as the smaller kids suggest
Grandma - Farmor (pronounced Momo) - This literally means "Mother's Father." If my mother were Danish she would be "Mormor".
Farmor means farther's mother, not mother's farther.
Great Aunt - Grandmoster - (Pronounced Gran maaaster) - mother's sister, or great-aunt.
The name for mother's sister is not grandmoster, but only moster.
Hmm... the hub is Danish and has told me that "dad" is fatter in slang. So, I'll go with that. Obviously the grandma one was a typo. Great-Aunt in English is translated to Grandmoster in Danish, so I think that was correct as well.... and you all thought you could trick me!
'Fatter' is not strictly proper danish but is a wide-spread colloquial expression (it may be more of a Jylland thing, though.)
I am not a Dane and my Danish knowledge is strictly limited to whatever they taught me in Danish school and through interactions with Danish people so far so if it's a slang term or even a Jutlandish term then I rest my case :)
I love this post!!! And you have everything lined out completely right for creating a Bilingual Darwinia!!!
My point was not that you wrote that great aunt means granmoster. But rahter that you wrote mother's sister is grandmoster. This is not true, mother's sister is only moster or aunt in english, not granmoster or grandaunt.
A great-aunt / grandaunt is the aunt of your father or mother.
Btw. it's spelled gran in Danish, not grand.
Do you speak French?
Pete - do I know you? I usually don't accept anonymous comments so please post either your full name or email/blog address.
Since I am a native English speaker, I do know that my great aunt is kjartan's mother's sister, so that was a typo too I suppose. I used to be a journalist, but I guess I'm losing my accuracy.
According to this page and my Danish husband: http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandtante, it's grandtante for grandaunt and according to this one: http://www.ingaogjohn.dk/1863888 it's grandmoster - so we're going to go with the "d".
And Bluefish - I can read and understand French (my family is Quebequois decent), but when I open my mouth to speak it I get lost pretty quickly. My Spanish is much better!
Congrats! And btw, I won't try to correct you when you happen to know someone who's first language is Danish! ;-)
@bethy: I have a lot of Danish acquaintances from Jutland and Aarhus area and they claim that they've never heard of this "fatter" phenomenon. So, *shrugs shoulders*
Hmmm... it's even in our dictionary!
Which dictionary, Stephanie? This is getting interesting :D
I've looked up at Politken ordbog and it says:
fatter (noun)
1. (old word / joke), a husband in a home (ægtemanden i et hjem) so it actually means a husband, not a dad?
Nudansk Ordbog defines it as a "Word like father"
Or online at http://www.ordbogen.com/opslag.php?word=fatter&dict=auto#ddno
It says here under Betydning og brug (meaning and use): "Loving or joking mention of one's father or husband"
Also see the expression: "Hvad fatter gør, er altid det rigtige" (what daddy does is always right)
Congrats on your upcoming arrival! I am an American married to a Dane, and we live in California at the moment, so ensuring that our almost-10-month-old boy speaks Danish as well as English is going to be a bit harder since the only place he hears Danish is from his father and visiting relatives, plus a small library of Danish children's CDs. We do try to have my husband speak to him only in Danish, but frequently (particularly when I am within earshot) he slips back into English. And he wants to be called "far" by his son (while I am mommy), which is fantastic, but I will admit it is tough for me to refer to him as "far" instead of "daddy"... I always default to "daddy" just because that is what pops into my mind first!
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